Give Me Reason
by Neko-chan -Silvered Tongue
Summary: "Sebastian, this is an order. Kill them all."


_Title:_ Give Me Reason

_Author:_ Neko-chan

_Fandom:_ Kuroshitsuji (both manga and first/second animeverses)

_Rating:_ T

_Summary:_ "Sebastian, this is an order. Kill them all."

_Author's Note:_ I don't normally like songfics, and I haven't written one myself in _years_. But I was rewatching the second Transformers movie with a friend, and when I listened more closely to the ending song, "The New Divide" by Linkin Park, an idea and story structure came to me. OTL I just hope that I don't make this trite. :|

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**Give Me Reason**

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_I remembered black skies, the lightning all around me  
I remembered each flash as time began to blur  
Like a startling sign that fate had finally found me  
And your voice was all I heard, that I get what I deserve_

There had been darkness.

There had been heat.

He had lingered here for centuries, content to watch the world with unfeeling, uncaring, veiled eyes that glowed with quiet embers; he lingered here because he felt no need to once more step out of limbo to join the matters, the patterned, repeating, dully repetition of humans' lives. He lingered here because he was satiated with watching, content for now to let the world—and time—pass him by.

He saw the world plunge itself further and further into Hell with each decision that humanity made—from the small, individual choices to the decisions that nations made and went through with. He saw humans enslave and beat other humans, murder becoming a commonplace crime, hate present within each mortal's gaze.

Why should he leave when mortals were damning themselves as thoroughly as he could encourage, drawing them into a sealed fate as the thread of their lives cut short by Fate's slowly rusting scissors? He was a lazy creature by nature, stretching out in Sloth and Gluttony, and it was easy enough to send his underlings out to help unravel events to the Apocalyptic future that he and his brethren had spent eternity looking forward to.

There had been darkness.

There had been heat.

There had been a slowly immersing, rising tide of memories and flashes of light that brought forth the future; content to watch from the distance, reclining in easy elegance as one that was favored and high in that favor, he watched and he waited and he stirred in slight hunger as the armies of the damned grew with each day.

This was the race that Yahweh had such faith in?

How naïve that love truly was.

He watched and he watched, and—one evening—he stirred himself from his contemplation as a desperate cry rocked through Hell, calling to anyone who might answer it. And the _power_ in that voice, the corruption and despair, the _potential_… it finally caught the demon's interest, and he left his contented Gluttony to ascend. All the while, the child's voice echoed and echoed and echoed, over and over again, through Hell:

_Please, somebody hear me! Anybody! I don't care who! Help me! __**Kill them all!**_

Staring the boy in the ocean-blue eyes, the hunger for something more, something that he hadn't cared about for such a long time—the hunger surged forth and burrowed deep within his belly. He wanted to consume this soul; the boy was like nothing he had ever seen before and it showed as he stepped over the bodies of the dead to make his way up the stairs to return into the light.

But he was stained.

_So give me reason to prove me wrong, to wash this memory clean  
Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes  
Give me reason to fill this hole, connect the space between  
Let it be enough to reach the truth that lies across this new divide_

It was intriguing how such a weak body retained such strength, such determination to conquer all that stood in his path and _win_. Nothing seemed to matter anymore except that single desire, and he had long ago enslaved the minds of many to bow down before his own will—this King of the chessboard, sitting atop his throne as the bodies of his pawns piled up beneath him.

But the determination… ah, the determination—

The scent of blood was thick in the air as the demon stepped into the library to see his contractor with finger wrapped tight around the other's rapier. Blood drip-dropped down his hand, running in rivulets over his forearm to stain his undershirt a bright, bright red. Red as deep and as dark as heart's blood.

The contractor shoved the blade away from himself and thrust upwards with his own rapier, driving the sword deep into the blonde's belly. Anger fueled the move, making it stronger than normal—and the demon felt a moment of glee at the thought that the fencing lessons had made this boy that much more deadly, that much more willing to take a life.

The choice to do so was now so casual for the boy.

The contractor no longer considered it, contemplated his actions and wondered if there was ever a "better way"—it did not matter to him because the Game took precedence over all… and that was exactly the way that the demon had arranged things.

Farther and farther, the boy eased his way into the demon's trap, knowing—somewhat—what lay ahead of, but refusing to back down and refusing to regret the decisions that he had made since the original contract had been forged. This boy had been equally forged in terror and darkness, the cruelty of others and the sickly-sweet care of the demon in his employ.

As the contractor shoved the blade deeper into the other boy's body, the demon smiled at the emotion prevalent and all-consuming within his sapphire-blue gaze: Hate. An endless, swirling, raw pool and well of hate that never ended and would, one day, be the end of him.

It was absolutely delightful.

_There was nothing in sight but memories left abandoned  
There was nowhere to hide, the ashes fell like snow  
And the ground caved in between where we were standing  
And your voice was all I heard, that I get what I deserve_

He walked through the hollowed-out manor, eyes closing to breathe deeply: chest expanding and his lungs filling with the scent of charred remains—burnt woods and burnt meat; the bodies of the children, the Doctor, and the Baron—all of them, every last one—had been taken by the flames just as easily as the wood had.

He stepped over what was once a ceiling's beam, and the slight breeze from his passage was just enough to crumble the wood; ash flew up, gray-white snow that clung to his butler's attire. It was a crisp scent, and it was a scent that led him back to Hell. Burning, everything burning—and he laughed, the sound echoing eerily through the already forgotten remains.

This place was haunted, haunted by the memories of Noah's Ark Circus, the children whose minds had been broken, taken forcibly from them until they were nothing more than mindless dolls—such a contrast to his own contractor, the boy who had claimed a demon and refused to relinquish his hold upon him.

Even when it meant that very same contractor's eternal damnation.

He wandered into Kelvin's bedroom, giving a shiver of delight at the insanity that he tasted, the obsession that still lingered within the air: it saturated the ruins, made it pregnant with madness. So much, this man had gone through—so much to attempt to become a perfect, beautiful human, to belong to the society that his contractor defined by his very existence.

Such desperation…

It was delicious, and the demon drank his fill.

Sated temporarily, he began to make his way down the steps into the underground cellar that had been the initial cause of his contractor's foray, brief as it was, into the past. His gentleman's shoes tapped quietly, sinisterly over the stone stairway as he went deeper and deeper and deeper beneath the manor—echoing, perhaps, the descent to Hell.

And here—

His contractor's rage, pain, desperation at the sights that he had been forced to behold—and here, too, the consuming terror that had taken hold of his body, had made him reach out and clutch at the demon as if the creature had been a security blanket. Here, the memories had rebounded and consumed the contractor, though he had managed to climb his way out from the fall with bloody, vomit-stained fingers.

Tear-stained, as well, though the boy would never admit it.

Not long after the demon returned topside, a raven flew away towards London, its harsh caw slipping into a mocking laugh—echoing through the destroyed hallways as the soot and ash came down like snow, like rain that dirtied instead of cleaned.

_So give me reason to prove me wrong, to wash this memory clean  
Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes across this new divide_

The boy's eyes were wide, kind for the first time in years as he stared up at the demon. His fingers curled tightly over the edge of the platform, mouth flickering briefly into a smile before he finally let go.

Down, down, down he plunged—with the demon falling after, black wings opening wide to make his way through the sooty, stained London air. He reached the contractor, just barely, and both of their bodies plunged into the dark water of the Thames.

The water sucked them in, and the boy's eyes opened for just a moment to meet the demon's merlot-tinted gaze. His fingernails bit down over the one-time butler's sleeves, and his lips moved to form one silent word,

"Checkmate."

_In every loss, in every lie, in every truth that you'd deny  
And each regret and each good-bye was a mistake too great to hide  
And your voice was all I heard, that I get what I deserve_

The boy refused to cry.

He walked away from Madam Red's funeral with eyes tight and mouth pinched—such a childish expression, truly—and the tears that he chained back did not fall. He did not mourn, though the despair flavored the air around him in darkness and death. The demon could see, too, the desperation that made him clutch oh-so tightly to the cane within his hand. Perhaps he believed, subconsciously so, that keeping it near would make him appear adult—when, in truth, the contractor was still a child who had lost a favorite relative.

His eyes were dull, sapphire still in the rough, when he glanced up at the demon. Color muted, there was something that had broken within him at the loss—and, the pathetic thing was, the human child didn't even seem to realize it. Such a sad, pitiful child. His eyes close, and he looks away—face drawn tight, perhaps temporarily lost in thoughts of the past: of parents dead and family disconnected from his current fate. A pitiable child, if the contractor had allowed such emotion for himself.

And if the demon had felt such emotion in the first place.

"That's why I will not hesitate."

The despair sloughed away for just a moment, though it lingered still beneath the pride and the desire to continue forward with no regrets—it was masked, though temporarily, and the demon trembled with excitement as the contractor stepped past: further and further he fell, becoming tangled in his own web of damnation. Willingly, the boy was becoming what he most despised.

He would be the most perfect soul when the demon finally claimed him.

"This is an order: do not betray me and do not leave my side!"

The demon, in turn, went down on one knee with head bowed at the iron that rang through the order. He murmured nonsense words, words that he had never believed in and never would. And as those promises were spoken aloud, his eyes flared with hellfire, hungry and intent upon the contractor's back as the boy turned to leave. Such a delectable, entertaining contract this was turning out to be.

And wept on the inside.

_So give me reason to prove me wrong, to wash this memory clean  
Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes  
Give me reason to fill this hole, connect the space between  
Let it be enough to reach the truth that lies across this new divide  
Across this new divide, across this new divide_

The boy had become what he hated most.

He watched the contractor extend a hand out to the circus performer, Snake's eyes wary for a moment before softening in infantile trust. The snake charmer stood and made his way over to the boy, fingers wrapping snugly about the boy's wrist as he tightened his hold—clutching at the spider's thread of hope that all humans, eventually, clung to when oblivion threatened. Snake came closer still, his creatures easing down his arms to twine around the contractor, tasting him with flickering, curious tongues.

Snake, pathetically, was beginning to consider taking on the boy as family.

Never would he realize that this boy, this contractor, had destroyed his original family, his original home. This contractor had taken away everything that the performer had ever cared about—had done so without regrets, without remorse, and—most importantly—without hesitation. His eyes burned midnight bright with dark intent, and it was with that lie that the boy truly—finally—was able to take on the title of the Shadowed Nobleman.

Manipulative, pragmatic, resourceful and cunning, driven by revenge and pride, warped by his own interpretation of duty and family—the contractor was becoming a skewed version of humanity and—pitiful, oh-so pitiful, truly—never once realized that he had willingly—already—leapt off of the edge to plunge with open arms down the Abyss.

He was twisted and broken, but still continued ever onwards as his soul became tarred with his own sins and the sins of the Queen that he was so devoted to. Deeper, darker, further, _more_: the demon would be sated—more than sated—with this soul, and he looked forward to the very end with eagerness.

He wanted to see just how thoroughly the contractor would burn, and bring the world down about their ears to join him in Hell.

The contractor was becoming what he hated most, what he had sworn to avenge himself on—would one day look in the mirror and see eyes that glowed faintly in the witching hour, staring back at him with an identical pair standing just behind his shoulder, blended in with the shadows.

The boy would breach the divide and become just as the demon was.

Evil.

**End.**


End file.
